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Setting up the editor for adding Singleplayer
BF2editor and Gameplay Objects First, some editor navigation tips for your review: BF2 Editor Tips Once you have the editor set up just the way we want it. It's time to get our hands dirty. Zoom your way around the map and get a feel for all the capture points and layout of the level. You'll notice all the CP's (Capture Points), Vehicles and Spawn points. Your goal may be to design a new layout from scratch with completely new CP's etc or use an existing one. The quickest method to do this is to grab a stock Dice gameplay layout and move it around to your liking. Now for a quick tour of the BF2 level editor tool bar. You will be using these tools constantly. This page deals with creating your game areas from scratch. If you want to just use an existing Dice layout then skip to the bottom of this page to the heading Strategic Areas and the Single Player Editor. You can easily move any of Dice's original layout to anywhere on the map using the move tool. How to add a new Capture Point Find a suitable area of terrain for your CP. Preferably somewhere that has some small amount of cover and somewhere that can accommodate spawn points that are not in a "line of sight" situation with the flag pole. Look at the Dice CP's and spawn points as an example. It adds more intensity to the struggle if the spawn point is a little bit away from the flag and around a corner. Make sure the 'Select Tool' or 'Move tool' is selected (You cannot place items when the rotate tool is selected) and right click on the spot you want the CP to be. From the pop-up context Menu choose 'Create ControlPoint' Name your new CP. Try and make the name something location specific that makes sense. Now in the tweaker bar set up the proper values for the game. You will need to add values to two things specifically. The flag capture radius - between 10 and 15 is normal, but size it based on your terrain and surrounding objects. You can tell its radius visually by the blue circle surrounding the CP. Now the value to each team. This is how much the ai 'wants' the get to that flag. The average here in most maps is about 34 for each team. Team 2 always refers to the U.S. and Team 1 always refers to the opponent - either MEC or China . If you were to say, put in a higher value for the Mec and a lower value for the U.S. then the MEC would work harder to get and keep that flag than the U.S. would. The tweaker bar is on the left. Setup the radius (I chose 10 - you can see the yellow circle is the CP's radius). Add a number like '34' to the AreaValueTeam1 and Team 2. If you want an uncappable base, checkmark 'unableToChangeTeam' If you want to make the base uncappable, checkmark the 'UnableToChangeTeam' box If you want the game to start with this flag as neutral, set the team value to 0. Change it to '1' for the flag to start as Chinese/Mec or '2' for the U.S. Spawn points As you see the spawn point is connected to the CP with a yellow line. Note the green line protruding from the sawn point. That denotes the direction the bot is facing when he spawns. Look at the tweaker bar: You can place the spawn point high sky and checkmark, 'SpawnAsParaTrooper' or you can place the spawn next to a vehicle and check the 'AIEnterOnSpawn' and the 'OnlyForAi' checkbox for spawning bots into vehicles. Same goes for the 'OnlyForHuman' checkbox if you never want bots to spawn there. Now you will need some spawn points around. With the flag point itself still selected, find a suitable spot and right click again on the terrain, choose 'Create SpawnPoint name ' it will automatically name it based on the Capture point's label so press okay. If you need to move it, select it with the move tool and drag it to a better spot. It should have a bright yellow line connecting it to the CP. Spawn point ON the navmesh = GOOD Keep the bot navmesh in mind here. If you place a spawn point outside the mesh, the bot will spawn and instantly die. So go to the 'Render' menu - 'ai' - 'toggle infantry navmesh'. Make sure your spawn point is sitting on the big green sexy blob. Now place 2 or three more spawn points around the place in good locations. Spawn Point OFF the navmesh = BAD NOTE: You can tweak spawn points for bots. For instance, in some cases it is better to spawn a bot directly into a vehicle for certain types of gameplay. (especially on the aircraft carrier decks.) Make sure the spawn point is directly next to the vehicle and then checkmark the 'AiEnterOnSpawn' box in the tweaker bar and also the 'OnlyForAi' box. You can also make spawn points "human" only by selecting the 'OnlyForHuman' Object Spawners Object spawner is a fancy name for vehicles and commander assets. Make sure the CP is selected and right click on the area you want to spawn a vehicle and select 'Create ObjectSpawner'. A list of object spawners will appear. (see pic to the right) The top half is China/US vehicles and the bottom half are MEC/US vehicles. Whoever controls the flag determines which army's vehicle will spawn there. Select a vehicle you want to spawn at that flag. (see below I chose the CH_US_APC.) Once again, make sure it is on the Vehicle navmesh ('render' menu - 'ai' - 'toggle vehicle navmesh') Create an object spawner for the UAV trailer, Arty and the Mobile Radar if this is to be the main base. You can move all of your objects about with the 'move tool' until you're happy with their placement. Special set up for large combat areas If you are navmeshing a combat area larger than the DICE stock combat areas, there is a common issue called overoptimization. You can think of it like taking a graphic and optimizing it to the point where you can the blocks that make up the picture. The editor tends to overoptimize large areas of terrain. The issue is that the navmesh becomes made of segments, called faces, that are too big to follow the terrain accurately. Then, during gameplay when a bot tries to follow the navmesh, but if there is more than a meter difference - Game over. There is a way to set up the map to help reduce overoptimaztion. By adding extra player and vehicle spawns around potential problem areas can force those areas to not be optimized. Sometimes that isn't enough, but adding sign posts or telephone poles around those problem areas to help even more. Be careful about placing the statics too close together or the navmesh will need to be edited to fix the holes. ; Off Topic : Side Note: You will notice that objects don't interact well with anything that is not terrain. Eg. the aircraft carrier -> if you place a spawn point or object on the deck it will go straight to the sea floor. Same with buildings or roof tops. You can turn on "snap to object" in the 'Snap' menu. SAVE YOUR WORK NOW! ;